Modularity vs cost

[Domhnall]

<opens drawer, lifts out, and dusts off "back in my day">

Back in my day, you had both the full blown metal bodied and plastic armed marines as a full 10 marine squad, but you also had a 5 marine mono-posed marine boxed sets (that mono-posed marine that makes other mono-posed marines jealous at just how mono-pose it was).

The 5 box was slightly less than half the price of the 10 box (IIRC), so there is a case for having both. I think the reasoning was (other than they were cheap and easy to make and punt out) was that you bought them to bulk out your army, or to complete a squad when you bought a blister pack of 2/3 metal marines. 

 

I'd say selling them in smaller squad sizes would be a good compromise for mono-pose figures. Sadly the second reason above is no longer as viable as most squads are sold "all in" as the age of buying 2/3 metal multi melta marines in a blister is long gone.  

[Bouargh]

46 minutes ago, Domhnall said:

<opens drawer, lifts out, and dusts off "back in my day">

Back in my day, you had both the full blown metal bodied and plastic armed marines as a full 10 marine squad, but you also had a 5 marine mono-posed marine boxed sets (that mono-posed marine that makes other mono-posed marines jealous at just how mono-pose it was). [...]

 

I also have a lot of metal bodies with limited poses. While you were looking for variety at the time you also has the option to buy sets with the same pose but with distinct details added on the master model - say for example a fur tail or a skull on the knee pad... It was not an issue for gaming. As far as converting was concerned it was of course a more expert task that required sheer sculptor abilities. Going back to monopose would ot be for me an issue, as, in fact, many kits available atm are not quick fit but already monopose or almost (Mandrakes, character kits, Harlequin troopers...). So as far as accpetation of monopose is concerned, we are already there in fact...

 

17 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Assuming monopose kits particularly push fit kits are cheaper for GW to produce, what would the discount need to be compared to standard kits have to be for you to be ok/happy with all new kits being push for/monopose?

 

for me, I’d say i could be happy with that for a 33% savings.

 

I am not really convinced that monopose kits are in the end cheaper to produce and that this wiill be seen oin the end price. Digital sculpting has the potential to reduce design step time, and, for sprues that have potentially a lifespan on shelves up to 15 year+, the associated cost difference is so diluted that it is probably anecdotical.

Maybe monopose may help reducing the time to market and eventually the tooling cost for manufacturing, as the mold will be less complex/allow more models per ft2 of mold. But here again I imagine the digital machining of molds and the CAD design of the latter has reduced the cost too and that automated molding speed up the production rate high enough if you do not have bottleneck in the number of machines available.

 

Yet if it should be the case that monopse may lead to some savings on sales costs, I would see it at manufacturers benefit only and with a specific interest for:

- either producing quick series of models not supposed to stay on the market as long as the venerable Rhino, Falcon or Catachan squad for example - higher turnover in references and management of novelties

- Or for speeding release for products with shorter squduled availability time - as per exclusive contents for Blackstone fortress for example or satellite games.

- And Big incentive would be  for allowing a fair discount intrinsic to a specific product type: starter kits with purpose for fishing and hooking new customers and beginners.

 

Oh, but this these are already some things done... 

 

Yet, back on price reduction... Well, any price reduction or inflation contention would be welcome. But going monopose is probably not going to be enough to compete efficiently with other sort of bargains achieved through 3rd parties producing other monopause printed models if the price is the topic. Product quality eprception and customer experience beyond the model (Lore...) will remain key factors IMHO

 

 

 

 

 

[apologist]

I rather like the idea that the Start Collecting/Spearhead boxes would have easy-build (monopose) sets, but that the more flexible (multipose/dual-pose) sets would remain as the standard. 

 

One seldom-noted benefit of the easy-build kits is that the designs can include more cool one-off poses, while the more flexible sets have to be a little more conservative to ensure the options fit. Having both alongside each other means that you get more overall variety. As an example, compare the push-fit Tactical Intercessors from Dark Imperium with the standard Tactical Intercessor box:

 

 

 

Note the more natural poses, with the marines bringing the rifle sights up to their eye.

 

 

 

Having too many of the easy-build immediately gives you repetition; but likewise having only five basic poses in the flexible kit will look repetitive nearly as quickly.  Fielded alongside each other, however, that's fifteen basic body poses (ten unique easy-build, five modular/flexible).

 

I hope that makes the broader point, though I don't think the Space Marines above really show what could be done. 

 

The Death Guard are perhaps a better example. Again, easy-build first, multi-part next.

 

 

 

Both kits are highly distinctive, and even with the options in the multi-part kit, their distinctive individual appearance of each figure would quickly start to stand out. But having both in your army is the best of both worlds – 12 distinct individual models without any conversion work at all.

 

Like the Space Marines, this range was particularly well-served because GW also released lots of 3-man mini-sprues that further increased the variety.

 

Next, let's look at the much-derided ork boyz set:

 

This was received with distaste by many for various reasons – inflexibility, few options, poses too distinctive... and replacing a very popular and highly-modular one.

 

But what if it had it been released as part of a Spearhead box, and followed-up by a complementary multi-part box sold on its own? I think at that point the very distinctive poses in the set above would have gone a long way to adding an overall sense of dynamism and interest to an army, were they dotted among the more conservative poses necessary for the options in multi-poses.

 

+++

To summarise, then, the idea of having Spearhead models as easy-build seems a great one to me. Easier for beginners to get into, but also attractive to long-time players looking for increased variety, more distinctive poses and more individualistic models to dot around their existing army.

 

For an idea of what GW could do with basic models in such easy-build sets in 40k, just compare the poses in the easy-build sets for Warhammer Underworlds (below), and compare them with the equivalents in the standard box (bottom) 

[Mods, hope it's okay to show these here for purposes of explaining things?]

 

  

Interesting, distinctive poses that you'd only want one of...

 

 

... mixed in alongside more generic, less individual ones. I've deliberately chosen one set famed for being a bit stiff and uninspiring, alongside one that's very individualistic anyway. In both cases I hope you agree that mixing in the distinctive details and body shapes from the easy-build kit to the unit in the multi-pose kit would improve the overall look of each.

 

Edited February 11 by apologist

[Xenith]

So what you're saying is that you want GW to replace push fit models with MPK versions for 50% higher price? Because that's what the monkey's paw gets you 

 

 

GW push fit kits already have a discounted price of multipart kits. The Exocrine, a 10 year old kit is multipart and modular and is £52.50, while the psychophage, an 18 month old kit is a monster (albeit slightly smaller), on the same size base, initially for the same points, at 70% of the cost of the multipart kit. Pretty exactly wat you suggest.

 

If they rereleased the psychophage as a MPK, I'd expect it to increase to £47.50 or £52.50 in line with other monsters. 

Edited February 11 by Xenith

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

2 hours ago, apologist said:

I rather like the idea that the Start Collecting/Spearhead boxes would have easy-build (monopose) sets, but that the more flexible (multipose/dual-pose) sets would remain as the standard. 

 

One seldom-noted benefit of the easy-build kits is that the designs can include more cool one-off poses, while the more flexible sets have to be a little more conservative to ensure the options fit. Having both alongside each other means that you get more overall variety. As an example, compare the push-fit Tactical Intercessors from Dark Imperium with the standard Tactical Intercessor box:

 

 

 

Note the more natural poses, with the marines bringing the rifle sights up to their eye.

 

 

 

Having too many of the easy-build immediately gives you repetition; but likewise having only five basic poses in the flexible kit will look repetitive nearly as quickly.  Fielded alongside each other, however, that's fifteen basic body poses (ten unique easy-build, five modular/flexible).

 

I hope that makes the broader point, though I don't think the Space Marines above really show what could be done. 

 

The Death Guard are perhaps a better example. Again, easy-build first, multi-part next.

 

 

 

Both kits are highly distinctive, and even with the options in the multi-part kit, their distinctive individual appearance of each figure would quickly start to stand out. But having both in your army is the best of both worlds – 12 distinct individual models without any conversion work at all.

 

Like the Space Marines, this range was particularly well-served because GW also released lots of 3-man mini-sprues that further increased the variety.

 

Next, let's look at the much-derided ork boyz set:

 

This was received with distaste by many for various reasons – inflexibility, few options, poses too distinctive... and replacing a very popular and highly-modular one.

 

But what if it had it been released as part of a Spearhead box, and followed-up by a complementary multi-part box sold on its own? I think at that point the very distinctive poses in the set above would have gone a long way to adding an overall sense of dynamism and interest to an army, were they dotted among the more conservative poses necessary for the options in multi-poses.

 

+++

To summarise, then, the idea of having Spearhead models as easy-build seems a great one to me. Easier for beginners to get into, but also attractive to long-time players looking for increased variety, more distinctive poses and more individualistic models to dot around their existing army.

 

For an idea of what GW could do with basic models in such easy-build sets in 40k, just compare the poses in the easy-build sets for Warhammer Underworlds (below), and compare them with the equivalents in the standard box (bottom) 

[Mods, hope it's okay to show these here for purposes of explaining things?]

 

  

Interesting, distinctive poses that you'd only want one of...

 

 

... mixed in alongside more generic, less individual ones. I've deliberately chosen one set famed for being a bit stiff and uninspiring, alongside one that's very individualistic anyway. In both cases I hope you agree that mixing in the distinctive details and body shapes from the easy-build kit to the unit in the multi-pose kit would improve the overall look of each.

 

My only complaint about the push fit boyz kit is that it’s a split squad lol.

honestly every model looks so much better than the old kit, which between the two main options they have basically are monopose, the angle of slugga and choppa being the only real differences in the poses lol.

[Evil Eye]

2 hours ago, Xenith said:

So what you're saying is that you want GW to replace push fit models with MPK versions for 50% higher price? Because that's what the monkey's paw gets you 

 

 

GW push fit kits already have a discounted price of multipart kits. The Exocrine, a 10 year old kit is multipart and modular and is £52.50, while the psychophage, an 18 month old kit is a monster (albeit slightly smaller), on the same size base, initially for the same points, at 70% of the cost of the multipart kit. Pretty exactly wat you suggest.

 

If they rereleased the psychophage as a MPK, I'd expect it to increase to £47.50 or £52.50 in line with other monsters. 

On that note, the Psychophage was probably the straw that broke the camel's back for me as far as GW stuff being absurdly overpriced. I may have my perception clouded by the fact that eBay was FILLED with them going for £10 NOS (a fact I took advantage of to get cheap bases for Tyranid conversions!) but if you actually look at the kit, it's incredibly simplistic. It's a low partscount, pushfit model and it's not even especially large. In fact, even the sprue it comes on is pretty small. The fact it goes for £40 from GW is frankly insane. I know expecting GW to price things sensibly is like expecting an Ork to win a spelling bee, but given how utterly saturated the second-hand market was for those guys for quite a while after the Leviathan launch, you'd think GW would look at the sheer amount of cheap unbuilt Psychophages people were selling and go "Hmm, I don't think we're going to shift a lot of inventory at full price. Given how simple this kit is, maybe we should sell it a bit cheaper? We wouldn't be losing money on it, and with it being impulse-buyable we'd potentially sell quite a bit!".

 

Re: Ork Boyz, the new kit is an absolute disaster of a box. As part of a starter set it'd be fine (even if there's something off about the way they've started sculpting ork faces IMO) but as the base kit for the main backbone of an ork force, it's dreadful. The split loadout is completely pointless, and the sheer lack of any sort of customizability is not only utterly crap for a horde army (repeated poses being more egregious the more you have in an army, and with orks being orks, well...) but for an army whose whole thing is ckustomizing every single model and an intentional lack of uniformity, it's heresy. Yes, you can convert the newer boyz to have different poses, but for the same amount of effort to convert one monopose ork to look slightly different, you could convert an entire box of older boyz to look completely different. Between the ball-jointed waists and necks and the simple flat connection at the shoulders (meaning if you wanted to change the shoulder angle in another axis all you had to do was cut and maybe add a small blob of putty to the arm) reposing older boyz was comically easy. Not to mention, the old boyz kit was designed such that at the time of its creation (3rd edition) you could convert more or less the entire army from the basic boyz kit with metal upgrades or just good old fashioned orky know-wotz and still have a really diverse collection of models. I think it's very telling that even after the release of the new kit, the old one is still in production. Even GW knows the new one is not a good replacement for the classic box.

[Dr. Clock]

Simply - knocking a third of the price off is never going to happen. I don't actually think there's nearly that much savings to be had from limiting all kits in this way. They're always going to try and economize on numbers of molds required per kit, but a logical extension of this idea is that you'd end up with boxes of 10 being boxes of 2x5 identicals, or even 10x1 like they did waaaay back with the earliest 40k and fantasy regiment boxes. I would simply not buy a kit with 10 identical sculpts in it today... so that's 100% savings I guess?

 

You can already sometimes save a bit if you just buy Heresy stuff instead of 40k, because they usually just pack more minis in each box. Solar Auxilia lasrifles really are about 30% cheaper than Cadians, and Tartaros Terminators are also like 30% less than 40k Terminators (depending on the vintage). Heck - just use Legion Tacticals as Intercessors and you save 30%, then legion assault squads are 40% less than jump pack intercessors model for model... Hellblasters and Infernus squads or whatever will end up being about the same price once you factor in the weapon upgrades, but Heresy kind of 'is' the budget 40k purely by virtue of it being aimed at a higher points value per game, meaning they need to push numbers a bit higher (usually minimum 10 infantry in a box rather than 5), and so they actually economize on the minimum viable products.

 

All that's to say that as and when price is a concern, one can usually find some cheaper alternative to mainline 40k kit. For me variety is often more the concern... I'm just a bit allergic to painting the same kit more than twice. For some armies, I can get by like that... for others I just end up mixing in weirdos and conversions from other lines, Necromunda and Heresy in particular.

 

Generally for cost savings I focus on characters, honestly... vehicles and infantry tend to be decent enough value, but you can get like 4-6 characters out of some of those Necromunda specialist kits for the price of 1.5 mainstream character sculpts.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

 

[TheArtilleryman]

5 hours ago, Evil Eye said:

On that note, the Psychophage was probably the straw that broke the camel's back for me as far as GW stuff being absurdly overpriced. I may have my perception clouded by the fact that eBay was FILLED with them going for £10 NOS (a fact I took advantage of to get cheap bases for Tyranid conversions!) but if you actually look at the kit, it's incredibly simplistic. It's a low partscount, pushfit model and it's not even especially large. In fact, even the sprue it comes on is pretty small. The fact it goes for £40 from GW is frankly insane. I know expecting GW to price things sensibly is like expecting an Ork to win a spelling bee, but given how utterly saturated the second-hand market was for those guys for quite a while after the Leviathan launch, you'd think GW would look at the sheer amount of cheap unbuilt Psychophages people were selling and go "Hmm, I don't think we're going to shift a lot of inventory at full price. Given how simple this kit is, maybe we should sell it a bit cheaper? We wouldn't be losing money on it, and with it being impulse-buyable we'd potentially sell quite a bit!"

Why they haven’t done what they did with the Myphitic Blight Hauler I don’t know. That kit is very good value for what it is. The Psychophage should have been boxed and sold like that for under twenty quid.

Edited February 11 by TheArtilleryman

[TheMawr]

4 minutes ago, TheArtilleryman said:

Why they haven’t done what they did with the Myphitic Blight Hauler I don’t know. That kit is very good value for what it is. The Psychophage should have been boxed and sold like that for inter twenty quid.

 

Because that was a different time, ETB kits where created specifically as cheap entry/gift products. This is also the era of the very accesible something something Verdos (?) paint and build series ( wich I think hachette partworks is a succesor of in a way.)

And it was part of that era's team plans to make even more core unit ETB kits. Then the rumor became they made more, but they will be released in a different way then came WHU wich seemingly put an end to ETB/Pushfit being more widely available the way they are ( price and presentationwise.)

With nowadays ETB kits ( but without their pushfit elements) just being shoved in as regular kit rekeases ( among them the whole cultists update wave, the 3 non beastsnagga ork kits released at the time, the initial chaos warriors for AoS etc.)

[ZeroWolf]

2 hours ago, TheMawr said:

 

Because that was a different time, ETB kits where created specifically as cheap entry/gift products. This is also the era of the very accesible something something Verdos (?) paint and build series ( wich I think hachette partworks is a succesor of in a way.)

And it was part of that era's team plans to make even more core unit ETB kits. Then the rumor became they made more, but they will be released in a different way then came WHU wich seemingly put an end to ETB/Pushfit being more widely available the way they are ( price and presentationwise.)

With nowadays ETB kits ( but without their pushfit elements) just being shoved in as regular kit rekeases ( among them the whole cultists update wave, the 3 non beastsnagga ork kits released at the time, the initial chaos warriors for AoS etc.)

WHU?

[Timberley]

To answer @Inquisitor_Lensoven's OP; no discount would be sufficient for me to like all new kits to be monopose/push-to-fit.  I find the monopose stuff great enough for a Big Box or Starter Edition (i.e. getting people interested in the hobby if they're on the fence about it), but for standalone unit releases, I prefer the multipose(ish) kit (as the new Terminators were).  For the most part, they're easier to work with for conversions, and overall are easier to turn into 'your guys'.  Monopose kits, whilst great for those new to the hobby, are more of a faff to work with for conversions as it's not as easy to swap arms or change a pose.

 

As a slight aside, it could be me, but I actually dislike the way GW 'cuts' the models for the modern kits.  As a recent example, the Krieg Engineers - they have arms that connect to a torso and hands with a weapon that connects to their arm(s).  So far so good, but the knuckle plate/demi-gaunt on the glove is part of the arm, whilst the hand has an indent where it slots into the demi-gaunt.  Why not have this small sliver of plastic be part of the hand and have a flat piece/socket at the wrist for the hand to slot into?  That way, I can outfit them with hot-shot lasguns and turn them into Grenadiers (say). 

[Rain]

The lack of modularity in modern kits is very annoying. Eightbound come in packs of 3, but can be taken up to 6, so a squad of 6 has two sets of the same exact poses, mutations, and weapons. You can vary them a bit by making bare chested and armored ones, but it’s still distracting, especially for mutated Chaotic units which should each be unique. What are the odds that two dudes in the same unit grow the same buzzsaw hand mutation, held in the exact same pose?

 

I’d much prefer less “dynamic poses” in exchange for higher modularity, especially as the 8B poses, while distinctive because of their unique weapons, aren’t even interesting. One is running, and two are just standing there. 

[roryokane]

I've been collecting since the very tail end of 2nd. I got one metal tactical squad, and then basically within a few months, suddenly, you had these modular tactical marines, then assault marines and devastators (admittedly the heavy weapons apart from the ML were metal, but still!), and then we had this ever expanding rolling range of space marine kits and bits, where, at one point, you had like 6  squads (command/tac/assault/van vet/sternguard/devastator), a bunch of characters, the torsos for the bikes and landspeeder and vehicle crews, kits for divergent chapters (DA/BA/SW/BT/DW and the Grey Knights in part too), AND FW stuff for both 40k and Heresy (not to mention the plastic Mk IV and III tactical squads), AND large chunks of the chaos range ALL able to mix and match to very large degrees. You had less interchangeability for the Termis and Scouts, but still, some bits could be swapped (AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO THE DREADNOUGHTS!).

I'm not sure how many kits that were cross compatible for the infantry. If you include the divergent chapters, you're looking at a VERY large number of units and potential units (Bike command squads or command squads with jump packs being examples that could easily be kitbashed), even if you want to leave off the land speeder and vehicle crew, and any forgeworld stuff.

My bits box is now literally hundreds of firstborn torsos, legs, heads, backpacks, arms, and weapons. I've sought out older metal models for completeness sake, and resin bits from OOP FW units I think look cool. I've bought as many of the 1998 tactical and combat squads as I can get my hands on, for the pure nostalgia value of assembling those miniatures. 

I kinda expected this range of functionally INFINITE combinations of the above to go on expanding forever, so the shock of A: the primaris release; B: the removal of firstborn kits; and C: the change of even Firstborn released for heresy becoming the five-poses-per sprue-on a loop is just SO disappointing.
The modularity of what we have as a whole across the entire space marine range has shrunk MASSIVELY. Now that I'm old enough and earning enough to basically have an infinite firstborn sandbox, I feel that the options for that sandbox have been taken away from me by the Primaris and monopose heresy releases, and I can't help but feel a bit cheated and saddened. But there, I'm a millennial, so nothing is really turning out the way I expected it would, growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, so I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the Hobby's gone this way too. :P



 

  

On 2/11/2025 at 3:58 PM, Evil Eye said:

On that note, the Psychophage was probably the straw that broke the camel's back for me as far as GW stuff being absurdly overpriced. I may have my perception clouded by the fact that eBay was FILLED with them going for £10 NOS (a fact I took advantage of to get cheap bases for Tyranid conversions!) but if you actually look at the kit, it's incredibly simplistic. It's a low partscount, pushfit model and it's not even especially large. In fact, even the sprue it comes on is pretty small. The fact it goes for £40 from GW is frankly insane. I know expecting GW to price things sensibly is like expecting an Ork to win a spelling bee, but given how utterly saturated the second-hand market was for those guys for quite a while after the Leviathan launch, you'd think GW would look at the sheer amount of cheap unbuilt Psychophages people were selling and go "Hmm, I don't think we're going to shift a lot of inventory at full price. Given how simple this kit is, maybe we should sell it a bit cheaper? We wouldn't be losing money on it, and with it being impulse-buyable we'd potentially sell quite a bit!".

 

Re: Ork Boyz, the new kit is an absolute disaster of a box. As part of a starter set it'd be fine (even if there's something off about the way they've started sculpting ork faces IMO) but as the base kit for the main backbone of an ork force, it's dreadful. The split loadout is completely pointless, and the sheer lack of any sort of customizability is not only utterly crap for a horde army (repeated poses being more egregious the more you have in an army, and with orks being orks, well...) but for an army whose whole thing is ckustomizing every single model and an intentional lack of uniformity, it's heresy. Yes, you can convert the newer boyz to have different poses, but for the same amount of effort to convert one monopose ork to look slightly different, you could convert an entire box of older boyz to look completely different. Between the ball-jointed waists and necks and the simple flat connection at the shoulders (meaning if you wanted to change the shoulder angle in another axis all you had to do was cut and maybe add a small blob of putty to the arm) reposing older boyz was comically easy. Not to mention, the old boyz kit was designed such that at the time of its creation (3rd edition) you could convert more or less the entire army from the basic boyz kit with metal upgrades or just good old fashioned orky know-wotz and still have a really diverse collection of models. I think it's very telling that even after the release of the new kit, the old one is still in production. Even GW knows the new one is not a good replacement for the classic box.

 

I was thinking of the 3rd into 4th Ed Ork line while typing my response, since that's what I played against most growing up. That was the point of the Ork range - cobble it together (and other gubbins were part of the charm!), and then add looted stuff (Remember when they could just have Looted Imperial vehicles, or the weapons from a Space Marine Devastator squad?), and you'd have a unique and characterful army. 


In short, I grew up with ever-expanding modularity, so consider that far more important. If real life it worked like DLC, and you could pay £5 for modularity for your tactical squad, I'd be hitting that button harder than a nova cannon shell.

Edited February 13 by roryokane

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

1 hour ago, Rain said:

The lack of modularity in modern kits is very annoying. Eightbound come in packs of 3, but can be taken up to 6, so a squad of 6 has two sets of the same exact poses, mutations, and weapons. You can vary them a bit by making bare chested and armored ones, but it’s still distracting, especially for mutated Chaotic units which should each be unique. What are the odds that two dudes in the same unit grow the same buzzsaw hand mutation, held in the exact same pose?

 

I’d much prefer less “dynamic poses” in exchange for higher modularity, especially as the 8B poses, while distinctive because of their unique weapons, aren’t even interesting. One is running, and two are just standing there. 

We’re of very different minds on that.

 

with standard cool poses it’s much easier to kitbash some variation, than it is to make cool poses out of static boring kits with a lot of overall variability imho, making one much less of an issue.

 

im not familiar with chaos and demon bits since I’ve done very little with them, but I’m sure you have plenty of options for mixing it up.

[Evil Eye]

1 hour ago, roryokane said:

Remember when they could just have Looted Imperial vehicles, or the weapons from a Space Marine Devastator squad?

I've been reading the 3E Ork book recently (a PDF sadly, though I do want to get a physical copy) and I love how the Lootas have the option- with opponent's permission- of taking the weapon options from any infantry squad from another Codex. Screw cheesy stuff like plasma cannon spam, I'm more interested in making Mad Dok Bugbutcha's Gribbleboyz, a squad of lootas who "volunteered" to have Tyranid bio-weapons grafted onto them by the suspiciously mauve-hued painboy. Would make for a really cool, fluffy unit with the opportunity for some great konvurshuns, and would be pretty spicy on the table too (devourers and deathspitters especially; the former's S2 would be somewhat balanced out by 4 shots each, and the latter would be chucking S4 3" blasts about, and both are assault weapons!).

 

...And now I've just remembered Andy Chambers' incredible army. Check out this Deff Dredd!

Edited February 13 by Evil Eye
I couldn't leave out that Dredd, could I?

[roryokane]

5 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I've been reading the 3E Ork book recently (a PDF sadly, though I do want to get a physical copy) and I love how the Lootas have the option- with opponent's permission- of taking the weapon options from any infantry squad from another Codex. Screw cheesy stuff like plasma cannon spam, I'm more interested in making Mad Dok Bugbutcha's Gribbleboyz, a squad of lootas who "volunteered" to have Tyranid bio-weapons grafted onto them by the suspiciously mauve-hued painboy. Would make for a really cool, fluffy unit with the opportunity for some great konvurshuns, and would be pretty spicy on the table too (devourers and deathspitters especially; the former's S2 would be somewhat balanced out by 4 shots each, and the latter would be chucking S4 3" blasts about, and both are assault weapons!).

 

...And now I've just remembered Andy Chambers' incredible army. Check out this Deff Dredd!

How Ork players haven't declared a WAAAAGH against GW for taking all this variety away from them is simply beyond me.
Your example is absolutely MENTAL, but for orks at least, completely on brand (and we know Ork Genestealer Hybrids ARE a thing). 
And yeah, I need to see if I still have my copy of 3rd Ed Ork Codex buried somewhere.

Back on topic - it's ALL ABOUT modularity and conversion opportunities. That's 9/10ths of the fun of miniatures for me! I get my zen from building my space marines. I may get around to painting hundreds of firstborn one day. But likely not until I retire. Gimme back my modularity!

[Rain]

23 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

I'm more interested in making Mad Dok Bugbutcha's Gribbleboyz, a squad of lootas who "volunteered" to have Tyranid bio-weapons grafted onto them by the suspiciously mauve-hued painboy.

This is the kind of thing that made the game so engrossing back in the day. Building an army felt truly personal, and outfitting your characters felt like an RPG. Now it feels like building a deck in a TCG. Which is fine, but it’s not 40k.

 

I guess HH is more the old style, but a marines vs. marines system without even proper Chaos marines is so boring to me.

[Aarik]

On 2/11/2025 at 1:48 PM, Timberley said:

As a slight aside, it could be me, but I actually dislike the way GW 'cuts' the models for the modern kits.  As a recent example, the Krieg Engineers - they have arms that connect to a torso and hands with a weapon that connects to their arm(s).  So far so good, but the knuckle plate/demi-gaunt on the glove is part of the arm, whilst the hand has an indent where it slots into the demi-gaunt.  Why not have this small sliver of plastic be part of the hand and have a flat piece/socket at the wrist for the hand to slot into?  That way, I can outfit them with hot-shot lasguns and turn them into Grenadiers (say). 

 

This is my biggest problem with how GW designs their new kits now.  I recently built the new plastic non-jump pack Chaos Lord, and while I love the model overall, the way GW cut some of pieces is baffling.  The legs and body can be built separately, except for the front hald of his right foot which is molded onto his tactical rock for some reason, so there's actually no easy way to use the body separately from the rock.  And he had options for a chainaxe or a hammer/maul in his right hand.  The hammer and maul share a single handle, with the heads being interchangeable, and the axe has its own handle.  I would have liked each weapon to be separate, but I can understand wanting to add more options this way into finite sprue space.  But instead of just cutting the right arm at the wrist and having a complete right hand on each weapon handle, GW in their infinite wisdom decided that the arm would also have the back of the hand molded onto it, and each handle just has the fingers without the rest of the hand.  So, the spare weapon that you don't use is much harder to use somewhere else because it has half a hand molded onto it.

 

I don't mind GW focusing more on making the intended build of the model be more dynamic at the expense of kitbashability.  Reasonable minds can differ on which one is preferable.  But it really bugs me that they seem to be going out of their way to make converting and kitbashing harder when they don't need to.  Whatever marginal benefit they get to the base model from weird cuts like these doesn't outweigh how useless it makes the kits if you don't build them exactly as instructed.  And that informs my overall feelings on modularity.  You want to make legs and torsos less interchangeable in favor of more dynamic poses?  Fine, no problem.  But at least keep heads and arms interchangeable.  Keep the shoulder connections flat, use similar-sized ball joints for heads/necks on similar sized models.  Whatever marginal benefits to the base models that you might get from bespoke connection points for each of those pieces is going to be outweighed by the benefits to interchangeability from keeping them the same.  

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

5 hours ago, Aarik said:

 

This is my biggest problem with how GW designs their new kits now.  I recently built the new plastic non-jump pack Chaos Lord, and while I love the model overall, the way GW cut some of pieces is baffling.  The legs and body can be built separately, except for the front hald of his right foot which is molded onto his tactical rock for some reason, so there's actually no easy way to use the body separately from the rock.  And he had options for a chainaxe or a hammer/maul in his right hand.  The hammer and maul share a single handle, with the heads being interchangeable, and the axe has its own handle.  I would have liked each weapon to be separate, but I can understand wanting to add more options this way into finite sprue space.  But instead of just cutting the right arm at the wrist and having a complete right hand on each weapon handle, GW in their infinite wisdom decided that the arm would also have the back of the hand molded onto it, and each handle just has the fingers without the rest of the hand.  So, the spare weapon that you don't use is much harder to use somewhere else because it has half a hand molded onto it.

 

I don't mind GW focusing more on making the intended build of the model be more dynamic at the expense of kitbashability.  Reasonable minds can differ on which one is preferable.  But it really bugs me that they seem to be going out of their way to make converting and kitbashing harder when they don't need to.  Whatever marginal benefit they get to the base model from weird cuts like these doesn't outweigh how useless it makes the kits if you don't build them exactly as instructed.  And that informs my overall feelings on modularity.  You want to make legs and torsos less interchangeable in favor of more dynamic poses?  Fine, no problem.  But at least keep heads and arms interchangeable.  Keep the shoulder connections flat, use similar-sized ball joints for heads/necks on similar sized models.  Whatever marginal benefits to the base models that you might get from bespoke connection points for each of those pieces is going to be outweighed by the benefits to interchangeability from keeping them the same.  

What issues have you had kitbashing modern kits?

it wasn’t that hard kitbashing arbites into engineers including handflamer, and flamers. Had to cut a hand off for the handflamer.

 

or an orruk into a warboss.

 

its just not that hard…like sure it’s not leave off boring static arms, then, glue on some other rather static arms.

Edited February 14 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[DemonGSides]

Yeah I get it's not a plug and play as it used to be with modelling, but I don't find modern kits to be that hard to mess with. The weird leg breakups are my biggest annoyance, otherwise most things are solved by building the model and then hacking down/off what you don't want and then replacing and some green stuff/sprue goo.

 

Even Push Fit stuff isn't bad once you start working that way. Although usually I keep those models to shoulder pads/helmets swaps just for ease sake. 

Edited February 13 by DemonGSides

[Aarik]

3 hours ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

What issues have you had kitbashing modern kits?

it wasn’t that hard kitbashing arbites into engineers including handflamer, and flamers. Had to cut a hand off for the handflamer.

 

or an orruk into a warboss.

 

its just not that hard…like sure it’s not leave off boring static arms, then, glue on some other rather static arms.

 

My brother in the Emperor, you quoted the two pretty detailed paragraphs I wrote about issues kitbashing modern kits!   The first gave some specific examples about how the new chaos lord kit was designed in ways that made it unnecessarily (to me) difficult to kitbash/convert it, and the second described the problems in a more general sense (lack of flat shoulder connections and standardized neck joints).  I suppose that I didn't give examples of the second, so allow me to refer to the Cultists of the Abyss set which had the renegade guard and cultists from Blackstone Fortress, because that's the kit which has annoyed me in this way most recently.  The lack of flat shoulders makes it harder to kitbash, i.e., perform arm swaps.  Or compare the old Ork Boyz kit to the new one from the Combat Patrol.  Flat shoulders vs. much more complex joints.  The latter is harder to kitbash as a result.  I'm not saying it's impossible, just more difficult than it used to be and than I think is always necessary.  Like with the Chaos Lord, or @Timberley's example of the Krieg Engineers, why split a hand into two parts??

[TheArtilleryman]

What the reduced modularity does is raise the bar for conversions and kitbashes. Many folks here are experienced with knifework and won’t shy away from it where needed. I’ve done some primaris conversions involving lots of cutting and fixing arms in difficult ways, and now enjoy the challenge, but a few years ago I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do it. The easy modularity of space marine kits made it much easier to create unique characters and units with half the effort it does now. It was a great introduction to kitbashing for people.

 

I think the HH MK VI kits are a good middle ground in terms of price and customisation. Sure it would be good to have a few more poses but there’s enough scope for easy customisation to make all manner of different squads. What I do think they missed badly on was the new MK III marines. They should have gone for five different poses for them because they lost the angular, chunky feel of the old MK III by making them too close in poses to the MK VI. Even if they made different poses they could still have kept the weapon upgrades compatible.

[Evil Eye]

If standard line-troops like, say, Intercessors were designed such that they ommitted the waist joint (so legs and torso are all one assembly) but were otherwise designed exactly as before with more conventional, kitbash-friendly parts breakup I don't think there'd be a problem. Waist joints are nice and theoretically could be engineered in without making poses look too unnatural (see the Dark Eldar Kaballite and Wych kits) but I can see the argument against them and can live without them.

 

What annoys me more is the stuff mentioned prior like half a hand being sculpted onto the weapon handle and the other half being part of the arm. It doesn't give any real benefit to aesthetics at all and just makes kitbashing that bit harder for no good reason. I'd argue on armoured models at least (Space Marines notably), making the hand and weapon a separate piece that glues onto the wrist (ala the excellent Grey Knights kits) as standard would be the best way of doing things, as it still allows kitbashing and doesn't reduce sculpt quality. Bare arms are a tougher proposition, though frankly I think having the weapon and arm be all one piece is an acceptable solution, especially for regular troops and especially for regular troops in a horde army; nobody is going to be looking at every single ork up close for signs of a slightly unnatural join, which are still easier to replicate with traditional parts breakup than obvious repeated poses are with the newer style. Alternatively, if we must abandon flat shoulder connections, a new boyz kit could make use of the bloodletter or AOS stone troll style, where the joint seams at the shoulders are cut along the musculature and still allow for full modularity and fairly simple kitbashing even without quite the same degree of free poseability.

 

The one that really gets me though is the new Tyranid stuff. I love the new sculpts, don't get me wrong, but nixing the balljoints of past kits was a HUGE mistake IMO, as quite aside from anything else the Tyranid design language with the exoskeletons and segmented bodies are quite literally built around kitbashing and posing. They wouldn't have lost anything at all by retaining the balljoint design. Hell, even for the push-fit stuff all they had to do was keep the balljoints, sculpt some sinews onto the ball half of the connection and add an easily-snipped peg onto it, allowing for push-fit assembly out the box that can be instantly turned into a fully poseable kit with the snip of a pair of plastic cutters. They already did that 21 years ago with the Carnifex's neck and waist joints for goodness' sake!

[Timberley]

I recently purchased a Blood Bowl Chaos Dwarf Blocker from eBay to use in my Chaos Squats Necromunda gang.  Blood Bowl models are fairly monopose, though there's opportunities for basic conversion.  My intention was to use the model's head on my Arkanaut Admiral and maybe replace the shoulder pads for the more 'Chaos-y' look.  The rest of the model could then be used (with some basic conversion work) to serve as one of his Champions.  Or so I thought...  However, the head is not a complete piece, with the hat and the edges of the beard being moulded directly onto the chest piece.  One of the other Blocker models has the hat being part of the back, the edges of the beard and the face being part of the chest, and the bottom jaw, cheek guards and beard being a piece that has 2 options.

 

As @DemonGSides mentioned in a previous post, it's no major deal (particularly for Frater who're used to converting models) to simply build the model and then cut away the pieces you don't want to leave you with the bits you do want.  However, thinking of someone fairly new to the plastic crack, they'd possibly be a bit hesitant to start cutting up expensive models, or maybe don't have the tools/skills to do stuff we take for granted, but could easily perform arm, weapon or head swaps if the kits were set up to allow it.  Also, thinking of my Chaos Squats idea above, the inability to combine both models to create two models is both frustrating and reinforces the idea that GW, for all of their talk, are against the idea of someone making 'their dudes' (you will build the models as the instructions dictate, no deviation!) without it coming at considerable cost (a win for them financially, but maybe not in terms of goodwill).  (This point is reinforced by the current rules, but that's a different topic entirely!)

 

Would I expect 100% compatibility between models of different ranges?  No, but I'd hope GW would realise that they could make more money by making conversions easier to do at a basic level.  A fairly decent example of this is (again) the Chaos Squats project.  I've gotten some spare Ironhead Squats arms, heads and weapons from eBay, and a discounted box of Arkanaut Company.  On the face of it, they're incompatible because the Ironheads have a ball joint at the shoulder whilst the Arkanauts use flat joints.  However, by cutting off the ball part, they're a fairly decent fit, and the size differences (Ironheads have thicker arms than Arkanauts) can be gotten around by putting on shoulder pads and/or using Green Stuff to create cloth or an armour seal around the arm.  The level of finesse required isn't huge (unlike my Engineers) so it's easy enough to create a new miniature that you can enjoy painting and putting on the table.  It'd be easier to do the conversion if both kits used flat planes or ball joints, but as a step above a simple arm swap it's great, and a step forward along the Path of Conversions.

 

One company that does modular kits well is Anvil Industry here in the UK.  Their 'Regiments' range is fantastic for creating 'your dudes' (assuming you're running IG or similar).  Admittedly, they lack some of the dynamic posing of the GW models, but that's easy to get around (far easier than would be true of GW's IG models).

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

On 2/14/2025 at 2:51 AM, TheArtilleryman said:

What the reduced modularity does is raise the bar for conversions and kitbashes. Many folks here are experienced with knifework and won’t shy away from it where needed. I’ve done some primaris conversions involving lots of cutting and fixing arms in difficult ways, and now enjoy the challenge, but a few years ago I wouldn’t have had the confidence to do it. The easy modularity of space marine kits made it much easier to create unique characters and units with half the effort it does now. It was a great introduction to kitbashing for people.

 

I think the HH MK VI kits are a good middle ground in terms of price and customisation. Sure it would be good to have a few more poses but there’s enough scope for easy customisation to make all manner of different squads. What I do think they missed badly on was the new MK III marines. They should have gone for five different poses for them because they lost the angular, chunky feel of the old MK III by making them too close in poses to the MK VI. Even if they made different poses they could still have kept the weapon upgrades compatible.

And until relatively recently metal models were still not hard to find on shelves.

 

it might have been easier to kitbash a captain in 2008 than now, but to get a truly interesting pose out of them, I’d say it was much more difficult back then requiring more knife work, or green stuff work now.